Never forget that Trump was the culmination of 40 years of stagnant wages, widening inequality, corruption, dog-whistle

[applegrove]

Never forget that Trump was the culmination of 40 years of stagnant wages, widening inequality, corruption, dog-whistle politics, and economic gains for the rich.

If we fail to address this, we should expect future Trumps as far as the eye can see.

— Robert Reich (@rbreich.bsky.social) 2025-02-12T01:00:09.810343Z

Robert Reich:

Never forget that Trump was the culmination of 40 years of stagnant wages, widening inequality, corruption, dog-whistle politics, and economic gains for the rich.

If we fail to address this, we should expect future Trumps as far as the eye can see.

[RockRaven]

1. One of the major (purposeful, IMO) failings of MSM analysis of TCF/MAGA is

treatment of him merely as an individual/cult of personality. True in a sense, but also totally inadequate. That individual/cult of personality is merely one flavor of the general phenomenon, which is much more deeply rooted and will be much harder to deal with.

After all, any one man is limited by... well, you know, let's use the Biblical 120 years for natural unavoidable mortality.

The fucking rot of our society which resulted in his elections is multi-generational already, with no end in sight -- and very likely to get much worse going forward. THAT is a goddamned problem with few solutions on offer but which must be dealt with to change course.

[DSandra]

2. FDR's two truths of liberty...

"The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.

The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way as to sustain an acceptable standard of living."

- https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/message-congress-curbing-monopolies

[diane in sf]

3. The rich, through the Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society, packed the courts. The oligarchs of Russia

Flooded money into the Republican Party through the NRA and directly. Our more local oligarchs funded the Repugs and consolidated media since the 80s and made it impossible to hear anything but right wing propaganda. Between right wing radio, fox and now the internet enabling micro targeting of people, about 40% of the country believes in fiction. tRump has been laundering money for Russian oligarchs since the 90s. The Republicans have gerrymandered, suppressed voter registration, messed with voting machines vote counting (Rove and likely Musk), had 5 crooked Supreme Court members appoint bush jr. to office. All this has enabled them to seize power, when their platforms should have made them dwindle into a regional party 20 years ago.

[JI7]

4. It was mostly white racism . I know he made gains among

non whites but they also voted based on their bigotry and hoping he goes after certain groups.

People struggling economically voted for Harris also.

[artemisia1]

5. It is not insignificant that both Ronald Reagan AND Donald Trump had Roy Cohn as advisors.

[keep_left]

6. The worst part of the nation's decline is that 50 years ago...

...any idiot could see what was coming if we didn't get some sort of plan. The post-WWII economy was dominated by the US mostly because we were the only large economy that hadn't been completely smashed. Wartime and post-war planners both knew things wouldn't stay that way forever. By the '60s, Japan had made huge strides in technology, and I don't need to belabor the point by discussing the history of Japanese auto manufacturing in the '80s. But throughout all of this, American business and government leaders did little or nothing. Soon those of us in the Midwest began seeing metastasizing urban wastelands and brownfields, which later became known as the "rust belt".

[applegrove]

7. Oh I think squeezing the middle class financially

was the Movement Conservative plan all along. People under financial anxiety think with emotion not rationally. And they vote that way too.

[keep_left]

8. Oh, yeah, I think that's definitely true when it came to...

...movement conservatives, the Orange County type in particular (see the book Suburban Warriors for a good discussion of this especially pernicious strain of movement conservatism). But the postwar planners were largely not movement conservatives. They were largely the Kennedy liberals. An argument could be made that they got bogged down with their ambitions in Vietnam, but there was probably more to it than that. Part of it (at least) is that our leadership just got complacent. And then they were ultimately defeated by the movement conservatives, who have laid waste to the New Deal consensus for 40 years now--and they continue to do so.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/suburban-warriors-lisa-mcgirr/1129969754

[applegrove]

9. I did not follow US politics in the 60s and 70s as I was a kid.

But yeah. Liberals got complacent and didn't get how long the long game was for movement conservatives. And how detailed. And how vicious. Some bought into supply side economics (me guilty in believing a lecture in University) like the Clintons who came up with the third way. Some undid the fairness doctrine and banking regulations. Hell has ensued. I think the whole private equity and hedge funds in the housing and rental markets are meant to squeeze the middle class into financial anxiety. AI will cost a lot of jobs. More people will stop using their rational minds to vote if we don't hang all the pain around MAGA where it belongs.

[Hugin]

10. Yeah, they have all of these unscientific rules of thumb about how things 'aughta be...

Like Trickle Down Economics, the Laffer Curve, and that unemployment should never fall below 5%. Of course, all of it designed to keep the uppity folks in their place.

Even George H. W. Bush called it Voodoo.

Then, came along COVID and the Hoi Polloi came close to finding out that it didn’t have to be that way and the Divine Providence crowd lost their fricken minds.

[misanthrope]

11. Reagan was the flower of movement conservatism

Trump is the full fruit.